How To Put An End to Herman Cain’s Presidential Run

Black Enterprise Magazine, Feb 1988

If you want to stop Herman Cain’s Presidential Run, ask him these 15 questions:
1) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1988?
2) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1989?
3) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1990?
4) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1991?
5) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1992?
6) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1993?
7) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1994?

8) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1995?
9) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1996?

10) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1997?
11) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1998?
12) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 1999?
13) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 2000?
14) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 2001?
15) How much profit did Godfather’s Pizza make in 2002?

I believe he will not answer because the Manager buyout of Godfather’s Pizza that he led in 1988 was heavily mortgaged to the bank. All profits apparently went to the bank. Thus for 15 years as C.E.O. of Godfather’s Pizza, the company did not not make any profits.

Cain likes to say that he brought back Godfather’s Pizza from the edge of bankruptcy and made it profitable. However since 1985 when Pillsbury first bought the company, there has been no data to back this up. Up to 1984, Godfather’s Pizza had made a profit every year of its existence. If it made a profit in 1985 is unknown, but we do know that the owners of Godfather’s Pizza, Diversifoods, projected that it would make a profit in 1986 through 1990.

Thus the truth is most likely that Cain was put in charge of a very profitable company and within three years brought it teetering to the edge of bankruptcy.

We won’t know the truth until he releases earnings and profit statements for each year that he was CEO, which he has never done. I suspect he never will do it. Herman Cain, Release your Godfather’s Pizza Annual Earnings Statements!

2 comments

Please don’t forget his catastrophic tenure at Aquila Energy. He cost the staff $200 million while cooking the books with the same accounting techniques Enron was indicted for. He also oversaw a massive golden parachute for the board while the company was tanking and did not include one single share in the executive pay outs.

I have a feeling that if the books at Godfather Pizza were ever opened, we’d find plenty of interesting things there too.
We can’t tell the value of Godfather’s because it was not subject to open bidding. Estimates range from 30 to 100 million dollars. The Manager buyout he led apparently cost $40 million. Ordinarily, we would have expected him to turn around and sell the company for a much higher value. However, something went wrong with the plan. Apparently, he drove the company into the ground, so it was never worth the $40 million he owed the bank. For 15 years it appears the banks got all the millions of dollars that the poor minimum wage employees of Godfather’s made. I doubt that Cain himself saw very much of it, but I could be wrong.